Maybe this won't be a popular opinion here (yell at me if you want to) but Willow's memory erasure of Tara was *worse* than Spike's attempted rape of Buffy. Spike *failed*. Willow *succeeded*. And by *fixing* their relationship (even temporarily), Willow essentially raped Tara. Worse, she did it knowing what Tara had already gone through with Glory.

So forgive me if I don't find Willow's "recovery" in Season 7 to be complete. Sure, to her "magic addiction," but because Tara died, we never get to see Willow come to grips with what she actually did to Tara. Willow was always the one with power in the relationship. It was always destructive, and so far in the narrative, we've never seen her actually deal with it.

The idea that somehow Willow's behavior was acceptable because the two were somehow meant to be together or truly in love doesn't justify it. To me, it's merely wishful thinking. If there was any real mistake in the series, it was having Willow do this thing. It was easily the most purely evil and selfish thing anyone did in the show. I get the point of having sweet, kind Willow be the one to do it, but I think it was a step too far.

ern | March 23, 15:45 CET

I thought, from season six onwards, that Willow and Tara were mishandled badly, both separately and as a couple. I think Tara's reconciliation with Willow was shallow and unearned; Tara basically just sort of missed being with Willow as far as her dialogue would have us believe, and was willing to forgive her for that reason alone. So what if Willow had invaded her mind and erased her memory (twice!)

One significant reason for Buffy's greatness: when it failed, it failed by pushing things too far, not by being too craven to take a chance. Unfortunately Willow's mind-rape of Tara was too far. I like the idea of Willow wanting to control things and take shortcuts to do it because it seems a logical progression of her character, but I thought "magic addiction" was trite and too easy an explanation, and I also thought that her erasing Tara's memories stretched credulity even for someone who wants to control everything around her. Especially after what Glory did, I just don't think Willow would do something like that to Tara. I think a better way to explore this tendency in Willow would have been for her to try to do this to a bad guy. For instance--what if she attempted to wipe Spike's memory and control his mind through some sort of magc in order to render him less of a threat? That could have led to some interesting conflicts. But, doing it to Tara, the girl she loved? I just never believed it.

Hellmouthguy | March 23, 15:56 CET

For what it's worth, I love S6 precisely because it takes all of our "heroes" to their darkest moments, shows that they're human and can fail abysmally, and, mostly, because it does the most interesting things with gender relations that I've ever seen on TV.

I think one of the overarching themes (intended or not, I don't care: the author is dead) of S6 is exploring the horrible things people do to each other in the name of "love." Plus, again: there's so much gender stuff to unpack here; I could write a book.

So you have one half of the lesbian couple essentially date-rape her partner (the memory spell reads purely as a date-rape-drug metaphor for me), which troubles the idea of rape being something that only a man can do to a woman (not to deny that it overwhelming does play out that way and should be viewed mainly within the context of the patriarchy, but taking it out of that male-female context in this specific situation makes for some really interesting interactions); you have the inversion of the male-female dynamic with the woman being the one who is using the man for sex, while the man desperately wants it to be about emotion (their tendency to upend the gender dynamic completely is my favorite thing about Buffy and Spike, and that doesn't stop when it tries to reassert itself in "Seeing Red"); you have the most heteronormative couple unable to talk about their own doubts with each other and so the man's fear of commitment ends with heartbreak for the woman...and is then complicated again by Anya's decision to become a vengenance demon again (I hatehatehate the cliche moment of someone getting left at the altar, but the idea of them breaking apart is an interesting one. Still, I think it would have been gustier and better writing to show Xander and Anya actually getting married and then dealing with things that way--no one can tell me that Wash and Zoe or Coach and Mrs. Coach on Friday Night Lights are boring).

My main complaint is that in the case of Willow and Tara (and to a much lesser extent, Buffy and Spike, though I think the soul covered a lot of this ground), the writers didn't really examine the implications of the darkness they embraced. Are we supposed to think that Tara did the right thing going back to Willow? I personally think Joss just wanted Tara's death to be a bigger shock, and his way of accomplishing that seems to be to let someone be happy for five minutes and then completely destroy them (which is a trope I'm getting sick of, frankly).

Hellmouthguy: But, doing it to Tara, the girl she loved? I just never believed it.

I did. To me, if she'd done it to anyone else, it wouldn't have nearly as much of an impact. It had to be Tara, just as it had to be Dawn that Buffy died for in S5, to accomplish the point. If Buffy had died for any of her other friends (or her mom), it would have undermined the beautiful adoption metaphor and the fact that S5 is about choosing to love, even when it's difficult. If Tara had wiped Spike's mind, that isn't dark enough, it doesn't show her hitting rock bottom, which is what the season is about. They were pushing it as far as it could go. There would have been all kinds of people justifying her decision if it had been Spike (just like there are all kinds of people justifying Twilight's decisions right now); with Tara, you can't deny that it's a terrible, terrible thing. And if it hadn't been Tara, I don't know that I would have believed her going Dark!Willow in the end--I would have been wondering how she reached that place.

That said, I don't like the addiction metaphor either. It failed.

Also, thank you, Shey, for fielding that one. ;)

[ edited by Lirazel on 2010-03-23 16:50 ]

Lirazel | March 23, 16:45 CET

I agree about the impact, but nevertheless it just didn't seem at all in character for Willow to do that. I just don't see Willow as a rapist and I think this is yet another example of Joss yanking characters around to accomplish his ends while not giving thought to what the characters want to do. (One bright side to the whole Dark Willow fiasco for me though: it led me to have to really be creative in coming up with my own take on why she would be capable of doing something like that to someone in my fanfic.) Willow as a date-rapist strikes me as just as much of a looney contrivance as Boyd suddenly being the head of Rossum. What on Earth was Willow's self-justification for doing this to Tara? She wanted to avoid an argument so she violates her girlfriend's mind? That's like burning your house down because you saw a mouse. It's a gigantic overreaction on Willow's part and it makes no sense to me when trying to reconcile it with the person Willow had been for the previous five seasons. I think season six failed specifically because it too often went for the big dramatic impact over sound character work and Dark Willow is the poster-child for that. Even worse, they copped out in the end and blamed it on "dark magic" instead of at least calling it what it was.

Hellmouthguy | March 23, 17:34 CET

I don't know about that. I think it's been pretty clear from...S3 ("Lovers Walk") that Willow's issue is control (of the social dynamic of the Scoobies--she hateshateshates disharmony, which is what she would view her argument with Tara). And that's what rape is about--not sex, but control, power. I am confident she didn't even see it as rape at all (as most rapist don't--there've been all kinds of studies that show that if you leave out the word "rape" but describe behaviors, people are willing to admit they behave in these ways...but completely deny it when the word "rape" is involved), and I think if someone had suggested such a thing to her, she'd be horrified. She merely thought, "Tara's mad at me. This is not okay. How can I fix this?" And since her reaction to pretty much everything for the last little while is, "With magic," I find it perfectly in character.

But then, since you hate S6 and I love it, we might just have to agree that our views of her are completely different and that what works for me won't work for you and vice versa. :) I've appreciated your opinions lately on various subjects, even when I couldn't more violently disagree with you (which is most of the time, honestly). You always have reasoning behind your opinions, even when I disagree with them.

I think you'd be very interested to read this meta. It's really insightful into what makes Willow tick.

Lirazel | March 23, 18:03 CET

And I appreciate your opinions as well. I love discussing and dissecting this show; it provides endless fodder for debate. There's nothing wrong with intelligent criticism of a work of art (which BtVS certainly is regardless of the relative merits of indiviual seasons) as long as the tone is kept civil, and I greatly enjoy hearing and debating opinions that are diametrically opposed to mine as long as they're backed up with reasoned argument.

I think a lot of the love/hate of season six out there simply comes down to Spike. Either people can't get enough of him or they want substantially less; count me in the latter camp. For me he was a symptom of what was wrong with the show in season six, but he also represented a burgeoning problem in and of himself, as the writers scrambled to turn this perfectly wonderful villain who succeeded marvelously as an occasional guest-star into a member of the gang who always needed a new contrived reason (chip, soul, pawn of the First, in love with Buffy) to even be there. By the end I thought the show's main characters were gasping for air as Spike sucked all the oxygen out of the room to make yet another speech about how cool he was, and the writers shunted everyone else aside to make room for Spike backstory, Spike subplots, Spike redemption quests, etc. while seeming utterly oblivious to the fact that Spike was a guy who was in fact the antithesis of the point they had been trying to make for years: the show was once about geek empowerment, and the fact that a shy computer nerd like Willow and a goofy comic book collecting geek like Xander could help save the world, and a pretty girl like Buffy, a cheerleader who on the surface looked like she belonged with Cordelia's crowd, would actually choose to hang wth Willow and Xander instead. Spike was the asshole cool guy who pushes kids like Willow and Xander around, and now he's being celebrated, while Tara, the new shy girl, is being pushed around by, of all people, Willow. By season seven the new geek boy was Andrew, an object of ridicule instead of praise, and the show had finally succeeded in actually inverting itself. Now I agree that Spike is far more interesting, and presents far more storytelling possibilities, than, say, Xander, especially by season seven. I also agree that James Marsters was one of the most talented and versatile members of the cast. But if the writers thought that too they should've written Xander--or whoever they were bored with, as they were quite evidently bored with a few characters who were given nothing to do toward the end--out of the show rather than just let him hang around while all his lines went to Andrew. Insead it was a case of "this show just ain't big enough for the lot of us" and Spike elbowed everybody aside, right up to the very end, in which even Buffy's final battle had to of course end up being all about him: his final sacrifice to stop the uber-vamps was his final "look how cool I am" speech.

Hellmouthguy | March 23, 18:54 CET

Wow. And see, there's the entire reason I said "violently disagree." ;)

My view of Spike is as diametrically opposed to yours as it's possible to get.

To me, Spike is the biggest loser on the show. The entire point of Spike for me is that that "coolness" you're talking about? Is all an act, and that he's painfully, painfully, painfully aware at all times that if you strip away Nikki's jacket and the peroxide and the scar, he's still William, sitting in that Victorian drawing room, getting rejected. Spike is the ultimate outsider on a show about outsiders. He's not cool, he knows it, and one of the things I love about the Scoobies is that they know it, too (they see right through him, and it's fantastic). Yes, he's a giant loser who somehow, sometimes manages to convince others (and himself) that he is, in fact, a badass. Even rarer (but more awesome) are the times when he really is a badass and exudes it for all to see.

This is the point of "Fool for Love," but if you go back to the earlier seasons, you'll see that those clues were there all along. He's a whipped boyfriend (I hate that phrase, but that's how our society would phrase it) who gets beat up by the Slayer's mom, makes a deal with his worst enemy to save his own skin, takes off like a coward, comes back drunk and sniveling, and then gets emasculated by the Initiative. Loooo-ser.

I will agree with you that the writers did force him where he didn't necessarily fit in S4: he's got some fun stuff going on, but it doesn't quite work because they don't take they chip seriously; they treat him as comedic relief. It doesn't entirely work, and I don't blame you at all for feeling that it was forced. (On the DVDs, James Marsters straight-up says, "They tried to make me Cordelia, and it didn't work.")

But I've always been confused by the idea that character development is a bad thing, that a character should stay static and not develop. I mean, Lilah Morgan (my personal fav on Angel) is a villain but becomes incredibly complex. If they'd tried to redeem her, I wouldn't have complained; I would have thought it was fantastic (they sort of did the same thing with Darla, who I also love).

I'm also really confused by the idea that they had to come up with stuff for him to do. That's what they have to do with every character. Again, I agree that the chip didn't work well in S4, and I'm not so crazy about the pawn of the First in S7, but other than that, I think it all works really, really well.

When I was watching OOMM for the first time and Spike has the whole "I love you" dream, I went: "DUH!" And smacked my forehead. Because of course Spike's in love with Buffy. Of course he is. It made perfect sense to me. So I didn't see that as grasping for straws at all. It fit perfectly into my view of who he is, that he would fall in love with this strong, smart, fierce woman who is so far "above him." That's what he does. He needs someone to latch onto in that way.

I also disagree about S7, a season that has so many ridiculous weaknesses (but that I love since I love the characterizations of Buffy and Spike and Dawn and Anya). Why is it Spike's fault if the writers had run out of things to do with Xander by that time (I can think of a number of things they could have done with him, but they never asked me) but still had things to say about Spike? I think if you go back and watch the season, you'll see that Spike actually doesn't take over the show: he doesn't have more scenes than anyone else; his writing is just better.

his final sacrifice to stop the uber-vamps was his final "look how cool I am" speech. And again, I disagree: to me it's: "Look how far I've come." With Spike, the important word is "Real." Very little that he has or is is actually real. So that's why "Intervention" is so important; that's why the soul is so important; that's why "Chosen" is so important: because finally, finally he's found something that's real and his. After searching for it since he was alive. He thought it was what Drusilla offered him in the stable in 1880, but that wasn't it. "Chosen" was it. There's a reason that he's (literally) "effulgent" in that scene. ;)

I do have to admit that I identify with him completely. My friends crack up because I'll say, "I am Spike." Buffy's my favorite character (I'm as in love with her as Spike is, though in a totally straight way, of course ;) ), but Spike's the one I always, always understand (except for some of S4).

[ edited by Lirazel on 2010-03-23 19:50 ]

Lirazel | March 23, 19:28 CET

Oh, so much word, Lirazel. Spike is the ultimate loser trying to be cool and sometimes actually managing to convince people and even rarer than that, actually being badass. How many scenes are there of him being emasculated or beat up or tossed off buildings or his plans failing horribly? There's actually a Youtube clip out there that shows how many times Spike gets hit in the show (not just where he's fighting back, but just beat up on)--it's kinda hilariously sad.

I think if you go back and watch the season, you'll see that Spike actually doesn't take over the show: he doesn't have more scenes than anyone else; his writing is just better.

Yes. THIS. He doesn't have more, his writing is just better.

[ edited by Emmie on 2010-03-23 20:55 ]

Emmie | March 23, 20:39 CET

I pretty much agree with Lirazel, especially that Willow's issues were heavily built up to, starting with the delusting spell in season three. While I have issues (some of them big) with the execution of Willow's season six plotline, I never see her as out of character, including the Dark Willow episodes where it seems clear to me she's always her.

Partly what it comes down to is my view of the character, which is that she doesn't have a very strong sense of ethics, even though she really wants good results; what we see as her being highly moral and ethical in earlier seasons is primarily her deferring to others' judgment and not wanting to upset them. The delusting spell is an early indication that if Willow could get a good result without "good" means, she would do it without hesitation--because I don't think Willow's quite internalized the idea that her actions themselves can be wrong. So in season six, she resurrects Buffy using very dark magic and lies to the others about some of the details, because the goal (Buffy alive!) is worth it. She is willing to put people in another dimension in order to look for Dawn at the Bronze, because the effect is that Dawn would be found and surely, since she won't screw up, no one else would be hurt. She mindrapes Tara because, to her, both Tara and her will be happier after what she does, so why not do it?

In the Dark Willow episodes, she has mostly given up on the world--what's the point of living, of being good, in a world where there is no Tara?--but you can still see her attitude present quite a bit: wouldn't the world be a better place if "a waste" like Warren were dead? Maybe Dawn really would be happier back as a Key, and maybe Buffy really would be happier back in the grave. And maybe the world really would be better off if she ended it. This is of course all filtered through Willow's grief and rage (and her accessing magic that feeds into them), not to mention her own not-insignificant death wish and, importantly, her desire to obliterate herself. The last one is important, because she is stopped when Xander gets to her and tells her that she hasn't succeeded in destroying herself--that she really is still Willow, with all the pain and joys that this implies.

And I see her season six actions as rumbling below the surface in all previous years, just to a much lesser degree. "Something Blue" runs through most of Willow's behaviour in the dark Willow episodes in miniature: she is cruel to Xander, Giles, and others when they don't understand her pain, she wishes she had had the guts to do a revenge spell on Veruca, SHE EXPLICITLY SAYS, "If I were any kind of witch I could make Oz stay with me," she drinks (presaging the addiction aspect), she does a spell to try to make her will be done so that she can control her emotional state so it's better.

ETA: Incidentally, there actually are season six fans who don't like Spike. I'm not one of them--I think he is a good character with a strong arc--but, e.g., lj user coffeeandink has lovely posts primarily positive about S6, without actually liking Spike as a character.

[ edited by WilliamTheB on 2010-03-23 21:03 ]

WilliamTheB | March 23, 20:58 CET

Hilariously sad is just the right word, Emmie. I know he isn't human, so you can't judge him on just the same standards...but sometimes the casual abuse he undergoes makes me wince.

I don't know that I'd take it as far you, WilliamTheB, and say that her moral compass isn't developed. I'd just say that she has different priorities, that she even prioritizes different morals (and not ones I generally agree with), and she has a more Machiavellian worldview than Buffy does (though sometimes Buffy does stumble into one as well; all the Scoobies do).

But generally, I agree that it works within her characterization without me thinking that the writers always made the right decisions.

Lirazel | March 23, 21:14 CET

Well, I can see "different priorities" as well. Mainly, I think it's significant that Willow sees herself as a good person, and ergo someone whose actions are good--I don't think she is forced to take a long look at herself until she nearly ends the world.

WilliamTheB | March 23, 21:57 CET

Oh, I can agree with that. She operates on the assumption that she is good and so her actions must be. But that isn't the case, and you're right: she doesn't have to deal with that until she tries to end the world. Great point.

Lirazel | March 23, 22:02 CET

I wrote a short fic once where Willow got shot dead by Warren and we got Dark Tara as a result. No one was close enough to her to save the world.

Simon | March 23, 22:09 CET

That's interesting, Simon. I have a hard time imagining Tara going dark as a result of Willow dying--I see all the seeds planted in Willow's character, but not Tara.

If it were Dark Tara, though, I'd vote Dawn go after her. :)

WilliamTheB | March 23, 22:23 CET

While not withdrawing anything I said above, I agree that what was said about Willow and about Tara since are all very strong and valid points.

Tara in "Entopy" and Oz in "amneds" both returned before Willow ahd shown real rpogress; Willow herself is a drug as well as an addictive person. And I have to agree (and wonder why I never saw it myself) about Willow's lack of a fundamental ethic. Jonathan ahd the same problem in a different way.

As to The Attempt by Spike; yes, pre-soul. And, like the killings, and like Angel/Angelus, I'm the type who forgives crimes mroe easily than i do misdemeanors. So i still hold the abuse Spike dished out to Harmony and Buffy (which they acccepted) against him.

Simon, WilliamtheB; DarkTara is an interesting "Earth-3" type of reversal, but I also can't see it. Nor can I see her interferign with Buffy's surgery. I can see her kept out of the funeral planning by Ira and Sheila, going crazy in the waiting room after Buffy's operation, and taking off after Warren to keep her own sanity. But I can't see ehr deliberately killing him, or anyone else. Of course if he pulled a weapon on her and due to his nervousness he was holding it backwards....

DaddyCatALSO | March 24, 01:38 CET

I'm the type who forgives crimes mroe easily than i do misdemeanors. So i still hold the abuse Spike dished out to Harmony and Buffy (which they acccepted) against him.


I'm very confused by this statement on several levels. Are you saying you forgive murder more easily than, say, shoplifting? That you'd forgive Warren for killing Katrina and Tara but not Dawn for stealing jewelry? There seems something really...off about that.

Also, are you saying that (attempted) rape is a misdemeanor and therefore harder to forgive? I'm struggling to wrap my mind around what it is you're trying to communicate.

[eta] Unless you're saying you can forgive a crime of passion more easily than you can systemic behavior. Which...okay, I can deal with that. Except that the murders that the vampires committed over decades or centuries were entrenched behavior. This wasn't Willow killing Warren while she's made with grief (something that's still inexcusable, though you might find it understandable). Anything either Spike or Angel(us) did without a soul was part of larger behavior, never a crime of passion.

I am so confused. I've wrapped my mind up in knots trying to decipher this.

[ edited by Lirazel on 2010-03-24 02:18 ]

Lirazel | March 24, 02:08 CET

I... do not understand. Also.

Emmie | March 24, 02:33 CET